1909 Half Eagle-D Or O?

Looks like a D to me. An O is wishful thinking. It's still a great looking coin!

I snagged a couple of relevant images from Heritage, and shrunk them to the size of the pic here. I then blew them all up 300%, and cropped the same area of each in an attempt to recreate the same pixelization of the original pic, when blown up. Here's the result:





With the understanding that tooling to change the mint mark remains a possibility (heaven knows there's enough incentive), my opinion stands.

Thanks for all the input guys! One more question for the group. Since ANACS has already certified it as a D, which I'm seriously beginning to doubt in light of opinions of those on the forum and other collectors I know, should I try another TPG? And if so, which one? I was thinking about giving DGS a try, or maybe NGC or PCGS. My local dealer who is also a dear friend, has direct submission to both. I've never been a fan of PCGS, but in light of my recent experience with ANACS on this, I'd definitely be willing to give them a shot if they're good at Indian $5s.

How interesting. I had a similar quandry several years ago, though my example was more worn than yours. Anyways, I decided that it was a D( It was actually purchased as a 1909 P), but I'm not entirely sure either. Here is a link to the thread in cointalk that disussed it, and there is other relative information regarding these coins:
http://www.cointalk.com/forum/t36031-2/

I thought I had a thread here too, but I couldn't find it.

I have to admit a little curiosity as to why this discussion is going so deep - there's nothing at question here that a 10x loupe won't answer immediately.

Dave,

Based on your first two quoted statements given the bracketed statement "(heaven knows there's enough incentive)", I was little confused as to really which way you were leaning! I am sorry but it just seemed in the first, that you were saying genuine and the second, you were hedging on the that but still saying that you stood by your original statement. Maybe I am reading too much into them!


Frank

What I see in the pic looks to me like a New Orleans mint mark. I wouldn't decide based on that one pic, but if you held a gun to my head I'd call it an "O." Trouble is, I don't think I'd attribute this one even from pics I took myself.

If it's a New Orleans coin, it is far too valuable to be making these decisions based on small pics posted on ebay. However, the original poster can settle the issue for good with 5 minutes and a $10 loupe, and I'm just feeling a little frustration that we've spent two threads discussing a question so easily answered.